The idea that RN would want to hurt the child is absurd. The woman quit her job and moved in with a millionaire. Presumably she might have wanted to become a Mrs. S. Hurting the child is not the way to go to achieve that goal. So she has no motive whatsoever to do anything to the child.
If only people always acted in their own best interest, always kept their emotions in check, always controlled that ONE moment of fury, half the cases on this Website would not exist.
I certainly can see the motive of DS to murder a woman she considered responsible for the death of her child. But I can also see a very reasonable scenario where RZ might have been responsible for Max's death. It is not true that she had 'no motive."
Max's children, at least the two older ones, were, according to her own sister...destroying her relationship with JS. The situation was so intolerable that RZ was thinking of leaving, taking a time-out from the man she loved. He would not defend her or support her. She was frustrated to the point that she would chuck the whole situation. Those two older children had just left the house that morning. One wonders what humiliations and disrespect RZ had endured with no protection from the man she loved.
Max idolized his older siblings, especially the brother. DS speaks of this several times in several places, including her Foundation website. Would that hero-worship have caused Max to begin treating RZ with the same disrespect in that preceding period? Was this the first moment RZ had alone with Max after the siblings were driven to the airport? Did Max "mouth off" as he heard the others do...and did RZ just, in one terrible moment, lose control? These kids were going to cause her to lose everytjing!
The idea that RZ was too perfect, too calm, too virtous to ever make a momentary bad judgement call is belied by her shoplifting arrest. In the best case scenario, presuming she had never done this before, and was not a serial shoplifter only caught ONCE...then, JUST THIS ONE TIME, she lost control. She did not act in her own best interests. She did not act like the Christian she was. She lost control...that is a fact that is part of her personal history. That morning, she may have lost control again. This is what DS wants investigated. Was a strong hand put over a childs mouth that had just repeated ugly words, emulating the older kids? And how even more devastating ...if those words came from the one child RZ thought she had a good relationship with!!
We need to know more about the days that preceded Max's death. We DO know that RZ was fed up to the point of leaving. So....did the Older Kids suddenly become loving and accepting? Were they all..."The Waltons?" The days leading up to Max's death could supply a building frustration and rage that a wonderful love and lifestyle was about to be ruined by others.
So I find that both RZ and DS have "motives." Both may well be wonderful lovng people...to the people they love. But there were strong and compelling emotions involved in that blended family that preceding both deaths.
IMO...these two cases BOTH should be reopened.
SO, am I negligent? Were my parents? I think not...we just react differently depending on personal experiences, imo. 
